


Through certain half-deserted streets

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Greg's not always a picnic either, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mycroft can be a bit difficult, Relationships aren't perfect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3710866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not perfect, but then, what is? Five misunderstandings between Greg and Mycroft, and the reason none of it matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through certain half-deserted streets

**Author's Note:**

> Title from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

**1\. Further Education**

It starts with _Guns, Germs, and Steel_. Greg finds it on an end table in the sitting room – he’s crept in on tip–toe, it may be Saturday afternoon but he never knows when he’ll find Mycroft taking one of his exhausted cat–naps.

The room is empty and there’s no–one there to see Greg find the book. He picks it up, thumbs through it, _thinks_. A new copy – no pages foxed, no creases on the spine – left here, in the ordinarily spotless room, for him to find.

He hefts it experimentally in his hand, gives a shrug. He remembers being forced to read a bit of it in school, doesn’t remember the rest of the book. He settles in while he waits for Mycroft. He’s careful with the pages, holding the spine to keep it from cracking. He reads.

And so it goes. Books appear and disappear from that table on a schedule that is, Greg imagines, only known to Mycroft. A treatise on the Cuban missile crisis lasts a day, the _Aeneid_ for three, an Agatha Christie mystery for a week. Greg reads them as best he can, in the hours spent waiting for Mycroft. Sometimes a book disappears before he finishes it.

It's occurred to him that he should be offended – angry that Mycroft doesn't think him smart enough – worried at the way Mycroft can effortlessly shape Greg to his own ends. Somehow, he's none of these things. Just determined to slog through _Three Men in a Boat_ , and _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_ , and the biography of T.S. Eliot. He knows he isn't smart enough for Mycroft, he's always known.

And he likes it, rather. Sitting in the empty Kensington flat, racing to finish a book before Mycroft comes home, before this book too disappears – hell, it’s not what he envisioned for his life in his twenties, but by now he knows it’s a long sight better than greasy takeaway and crap telly in his own empty flat.

It has its uses, too. There's the time he surprises Mycroft by capping his quote – that earns him a soft look and a kiss, even in public as they are.

There's the time at a mix’n’mingle that he has the right statistic to counter an old stuffed shirt, stop him from talking rubbish.

There's the time he wakes to find Mycroft tracing a sonnet on his skin, the lines writ out in soft, loopy script – recognizes it, kisses him for it.

But there are limits, he thinks. A man's got to have limits, or where will the world take him?

He stands in the sitting room, looks down at the Latin primer, traces the cracks down its spine and thumbs through to find the turned–down pages.

"Mycroft?"

Himself steps in, still fidgeting with his tie. Greg goes to him, sets it straight, and captures his fidgeting fingers with a kiss. "I’m not going to learn Latin," he says, his breath caught in his throat.

If Mycroft makes an issue of it, refuses to be with a stupid plod–

"Of course not," Mycroft says with a little laugh, as if the idea is unthinkable. "Why on earth would you want to?"

Greg darts a glance at the table, at the book.

Mycroft laughs again, shakes his head. "i was just reviewing a few things before bed last night," he says. "No reason for you or anyone to learn a dead language just because I suffered through it at school."

Greg’s kept too busy wondering about the whats and wherefores to focus on the kiss, and Mycroft must be able to tell – he pulls back, a smile on his face.

"I find it helps me to sleep, a little reading before bed. The nights you're not here, that is."

It occurs to Greg that he may’ve had the wrong end of the stick all along.

"Yes, but....Latin?"

Mycroft pulls him closer, breathes quiet quotes into his skin.

"It has its uses," is all he says, later.

–––––

**2\. Exclusivity**

Ordinarily, Greg’s not concerned with Mycroft’s schedule. Anthea takes care of it – she sends meeting requests through his work calendar, and Greg’s not sure he wants to know how she hacked into their system. He doesn't ask questions, just accepts. Dinner invitations, late–night "meetings" that end up being for a nightcap, an obscure documentary, or a shag (and Greg very carefully doesn't think about Anthea thinking about that.)

So he knows that Mycroft is very busy, knows that he's got a lot of meetings, most probably classified, knows that he's sometimes out of the country and sometimes buried in Whitehall. He doesn't know more than that, and doesn't need to know.

So he's surprised when he wanders into Mycroft’s study, picks up the case file he'd been working in the night before, and sees a pile of notes in Anthea’s careful writing. Schedule requests, the note on the top says.

Greg knows he shouldn’t look, but he's only human.

The first is for a conference call, the second for a meeting. The thirds for dinner with the Brazilian ambassador, and has a note pencilled in the margin. _Miss Featherington–Smythe has agreed to be your plus–one_ is all it says, but that's enough.

Greg can picture her from the name, slim and elegant and the epitome of the British upper class. A long thin neck and a face like a horse – even as he thinks it, he knows it’s unfair. She will be the sort that wears the right hat to Ascot and knows which is the right fork to use. (She may speak with soft plummy vowels, she’s definitely a better choice for dinner with an ambassador than Greg is – that can't be denied.)

Even through the haze settling over his thoughts, Greg’s aware enough to realize how unusual it is to find this here. Anthea’s not the sort to use paper memos, she's always left electronic messages before, at least to him – and she's practically glued to that Blackberry. Had she left the notes here on purpose – for Greg to see – and if so, why? To let him know? (Does Mycroft know?)

They never said – Mycroft never promised anything –

There are a hundred reasons for Mycroft to do this, Greg thinks, later, when he's calmer and staring into a mostly empty cup of coffee. Avoiding a scene with a homophobic ambassador. Wanting someone who knows which fork to use. A dinner out used as a reward for hard–working subordinates. Knowing that it’s the last thing in the world that Greg’s likely to have patience for after a long day of work that includes the diplomacy necessary to deal with Sherlock Holmes. Those reasons. A hundred reasons. A hundred and one reasons, Greg tells himself. It doesn’t mean anything.

He knows it’s a bad idea, but somehow he still finds himself loitering outside the restaurant, sticking to the shadows and wondering how long dinner with an ambassador takes.

He knows it’s a bad idea, and he can't justify it. Mycroft never made him any promises. He never gave Greg any reason to think....

They're leaving the restaurant now, the four of them. Greg leans back further into the shadows, hides.

A man who must be the Brazilian ambassador, an elegant woman on his arm. Mycroft, as impressive as always in a three–piece suit. A woman who must be Featherington–Smythe. She's blonde, not the brunette of Greg’s imaginings, but he was right in thinking she'd be tall and slim, with a graceful long neck, with a black sheath of a cocktail dress, with jewels sparkling at her throat.

She isn't exactly clinging to Mycroft, but she lets him hand her into the black town car, and her hand lingers on his, and she smiles at him.

Greg can't see if Mycroft smiles back. He's looking down at her – he never looks up, never sees Greg.

Heading back to the Tube, Greg considers. The flat in Kensington? No. It means nothing if Mycroft’s there or not, and Greg doesn’t want to be pacing the hall all night while Mycroft’s working and then cat–napping on the sofa in his office.

He heads back to his own flat, lets the silence of it sink over him, drinks a beer cold from the fridge. Alone, the haze of it feels like a protection, like a blessing.

It continues – every two or three weeks, Greg finds a pile of schedule requests. The third is always the one he’s meant to look at. The woman’s name is always different.

After a while, Greg stops following Mycroft to the restaurants – stops waiting in the shadows, stops watching him hand elegant women into his car.

He sees Anthea – she’s holding a door open for him, and he says, “Thanks. You don’t need to do that … I can manage.”

She looks at him with a raised eyebrow, an expression that could mean either that she doesn't know what he's talking about or that she thinks him an idiot for not wanting to know. He can imagine her, in the same position, wanting to know and dealing with the outcome in her usual efficient manner – but that's not him. A man's got to trust, sometimes, it's got to start somewhere, and – after everything, after the trust he's given easily and seen broken as easily – somehow, now, Greg thinks he's found his time and place.

Greg isn’t sure he’s managed to convey the message to her, but he stops finding the neat piles of paper in Mycroft’s study. He makes himself stop wondering about the women, the dinners, and the dates he doesn’t know about, the things he doesn't need to know.

––––

**3\. Meeting the Family**

Greg's down at the pub with John when the birthday party is first mentioned. There's an excellent bitter on draft, and Greg’s settled into his skin with the feeling that comes from a case well–solved.

"Something simple is what she wants, apparently," John says. He'd had a few before Greg got to the pub – not that Greg begrudges him any. Hazard of living with Sherlock Holmes, that.

"Nothing overstated, and nothing like the Diamond Jubilee. How many people need to specify that they don't want their sixtieth birthday do to be anything like the bloody Diamond Jubilee?"

A rhetorical question, apparently. John takes a gulp of his ale. "And then Mummy bloody Holmes turns to Mycroft and asks him why he let the Jubilee get so out of hand. Can you imagine?"

Greg can't, but then he's never met the woman.

"Sherlock was still laughing when he told me about it," John says. "Bloody mad bastard."

Greg has a sip of his own ale, rolls it around in his mouth, savors the bitter taste.

"Anyway," John says. "Are you going?"

"No," Greg says. He drains the rest of his pint, not tasting it. "No, don't think I'll be able to make it."

"Lucky," John says. "No, positively jammy. How am I supposed to put up with three of them at once?"

Greg heads home, a little the worse for wear. The next day he grits his teeth, bargains with Dimmock, and swaps shifts so he's working the entirety of the weekend Mycroft'd said he'd be out of town. There are worse fates, he supposes. If he's lucky, the weekend will see him caught up with his paperwork.

He keeps busy, works whenever Anthea hasn't called him to Mycroft’s side. If he's always working, he's always thinking about work.

He won't slip up and wonder why Mycroft never mentioned it. He won't ask himself why Mycroft doesn't want Greg to meet his family, won't imagine that the man must be ashamed of him, ashamed of them.

If he doesn't think about it, there will be nothing to read, nothing to deduce.

"You’re working too hard," Mycroft says to him, late one night when Greg’s just slipped into bed beside him. It's gone midnight and Mycroft’s voice is rough, sleep–gravelly.

"Funny," Greg says, tucking his warm feet up against Mycroft’s cold ones. "I thought that was my line."

He'd got the calendar request from Anthea a few hours ago, smiled at the thought that Mycroft wanted him, and kept on sifting through missing persons reports. The long slow slog of routine police work, not the reason Greg loves his job, but more than enough to be getting on with.

Mycroft hums, a soft sleepy noise, and tucks himself into the curve of Greg’s body. It's enough, apparently, to convince him that there's no problem.

Greg holds him, thinks of cold cases, drifts off to sleep. There's no problem, after all.

Of course, it comes up again at Christmas time. Greg learns from John that the Holmes brothers will be heading out of town to visit Mummy.

"Can’t go, this time," John says – more sober, less regretful than last time. "I’ve got plans with Harry and Clara."

"They're giving it another go then?" Greg asks. With any luck, he’ll be able to turn the subject. Mycroft hasn't mentioned Christmas.

“Yeah,” John says. “You won’t – you won’t be stuck with them both, will you? I can tell you, Mummy’s birthday was no picnic.”

Greg swallows hard. “Don’t reckon it’ll be a problem, mate.”

John won’t be turned – he shares a few more stories about Mummy’s birthday, talks about Sherlock’s dreadful company behaviour. “But, really, you’re not going? I know I’ve said a few things, but that doesn’t mean much …. It’s not that bad. You two will want to be together come Christmas, surely.”

Last time Greg hadn’t said anything, hadn’t wanted John’s pity. This conversation, Greg’s sober enough to speak without morning after regrets. “No chance of that, really."

“What?”

“Just … not invited,” Greg says. “Don’t worry about it, though. It’s fine.”

John pushed his pint glass across the table, obliterating a number of rings in a clean sweep of condensation. “Well,” he said, “I guess … I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“We’re not – we’re not like that. Not … holidays and all that.” Greg’s sober enough to have this conversation, but drunk enough to let a bit of self–pity intrude into it. “Just his bit of rough, I guess I am.”

There’s a lull, an awkward silence, and then John claps him on the shoulder. “Well, then, what do you say to spending Christmas with us? If you’ve no other plans? Me, Harry, Clara, and a few bottles of the finest sparkling water?”

Greg swallows hard again, thinks of his quiet flat, the shelf where his few Christmas cards are propped up. “Thanks,” he says. “I’d like that – I’d really like that.”

––––

**4\. Professional Conflicts**

They’ve argued before, of course, but this is the first time Greg’s truly angry at Mycroft.

“You just can’t do this.”

“You’re hardly in any position to tell me what I can and cannot do.” Mycroft stands, walks away, and then pauses.

“I’ve done nothing which your overdeveloped sense of honour should object to.”

Angry enough to end a sentence with a preposition – that’s a bad sign, Greg’s guessing.

“We made funding decisions based on available resources and demands, and we allocated the demands appropriately. Beyond suggesting that New Scotland Yard would benefit from additional manpower, I did nothing. I had nothing whatsoever to do with your suggested promotion, and I will have nothing whatsoever to do with the performance review process. If you are named DCI, it will be due entirely to your own merits.”

Greg stares at him, waits to make sure he’s finished. “Do you listen to yourself? More importantly, do you believe the things you say?

“Never mind,” he says, one hand on the door handle. “Even if they offer it to me, I won’t take it.”

"Greg–"

He regrets it later, sober, staring at the counter of the bar, listening to the hum of the crowd. People with places to go, friends to see, lovers to greet. People with lovely, uncomplicated lives, people who are talking about Eastenders or the football.

People who don't mope around like daft bastards, longing for those things that are always just out of reach.

There's movement beside him, the sound of a body sliding into a chair, the thunk of a handbag being set on the bar. Greg knows without looking that it'll be Anthea, loyal minion sent out to make amends, retrieve him, whatever.

 _Whatever._ That's what Greg says when Anthea offers to buy him a drink, and he ignores the glass when it's set in front of him.

"You didn't have to come," he says.

"He was telling the truth," she says.

He might've been, but Greg can't ignore the fact that he'll never know if he was. He can't ignore the way that Mycroft looks – pinched around the eyes – when Greg comes home from a dangerous case. He can't ignore the way that CCTV cameras sometimes swivel to follow him. He can't ignore the fact that Mycroft _could_ have got him that promotion, whether or not he _did_.

It certainly hadn't come anywhere near Greg's way in the Years Before Mycroft.

"Doesn't matter," he says.

They leave it at that, the silence hanging between them broken by the sounds of the pub. In the Years Before Mycroft, he'd have felt like he belonged here, would have been out with some mates, would have fit in with the crowd, laughing and having a good time.

He pushes his glass – untouched – towards Anthea and stands. "Thanks," he says. "I'll – tell him that you did your best. I'll – I'll stop by his place tomorrow."

She doesn't look happy about it, but then of course this is Anthea, who is used to perfection and accomplishing every task set before her. It's her job to be perfect, and Greg wonders for a single, bitter moment, if Mycroft wouldn't be better off dating her.

It's a fleeting thought, popped like a soap bubble by another. His Mum, advising him not to let the sun set on a quarrel. _Better not go to bed angry,_ she'd said, reaching forward to smooth away the hair falling over his eyes. _It never ends well._

There are things that Greg can ignore. Mycroft picks up the check more often than not, has booked a hotel for the occasional dirty weekend in the countryside, has showed up with fancy picnics and caviar and champagne. They've never been balanced, not really, but this…

Greg thought he was good at his job, before this, and it was the one thing that kept him going, sometimes. Now he doesn't know, and won't be sure again.

He hesitates, fingers curled around his phone as he slouches against a sign, waiting for the bus. In the end, when the bus is moving through the darkness and the soft halos of the traffic light, when he is holding his phone where no CCTV camera can see it – in the end, he writes out a single text.

 _Sorry_ , he writes, his eyes closed and his fingers moving slowly over the keys by touch. _Talk tomorrow?_

––––

**5.Scheduling**

Mycroft makes it clear that he's Very Not Amused the instant that Greg's through the door, never mind that he's still dripping wet. His shoes squelch on the polished floor, and he winces.

"Indeed," Mycroft says. He's there with a towel – one large enough to cover most of Greg, and fluffy enough to absorb most of the moisture. He hands Greg a second towel, and then steps back. "I'll be in the library, when you're ready."

That, Greg knows, is code for when he's warm and dry and fortified with a cup of tea and whatever's been left on the hob for his dinner. He chooses not to take it that way, and simply toes off his shoes, steps on the second towel until his feet are dry, and follows Mycroft.

"Come on," he says. "You can't actually be angry at me for this one."

Mycroft turns to face him, and the stiffness of his body is a sign that maybe, this once, Greg should've taken the hint and given him a chance to cool down a bit first.

"And you," Mycroft says, with perfect plummy enunciation, "cannot possibly imagine what it's like to be stood up by one's date at a reception of this caliber."

"It's not like I had a choice – you know that." There's seldom a choice when it comes down to following Sherlock, and Mycroft bloody Holmes ought to bloody well know it, too.

The delicate arch of one eyebrow suggests that Mycroft Holmes bloody well begs to differ.

"Mycroft–"

He turns away, looking at the bookshelves behind him, the stiff leather spines – some of them never cracked. There's something in the set of his shoulders that makes Greg sorry, makes him want to resolve that Mycroft Holmes should never have to stand alone again.

The part of Greg that isn't crumbling is stubborn, though, and more than willing to stick to his guns. "So you're telling me that this is somehow, by some _ineffable_ standard more significant than all the times that you've stood me up or left me waiting? That it's worse when I do it, or when it's at a champagne reception, than when you've left me sitting alone in a pub looking like a sorry old punter?"

Mycroft's shoulders stiffen further. "You knew before embarking on this relationship that the nature of my work is such that–"

"Hey." Greg crosses the room in two strides, his bare feet padding across the floor. He puts a wet finger under Mycroft's chin and turns him until he can see his eyes.

"My work's the same, you know that. And it's your own bloody brother's fault that I ended up in the Thames and in no state to go to your gala. And…" Greg hesitates, but his own bloody pride won't let him leave this unsaid, either. "And, look, maybe it couldn't be helped, but I _am_ sorry."

Mycroft being Mycroft, he's probably deduced as much already, but some things have to be said. Greg leans in as close as he can without getting him wet, and presses a kiss to his cheek. "I wouldn't have left you there alone if I'd had any choice in the matter – you know that, right?"

They stand together for a few heartbeats, Greg still dripping on the library floor, and then Mycroft says "I know," and herds him upstairs for a hot bath and dry clothes.

––––

**+1. Perfect harmony….**

There are times when it's rough, and then there's times when none of that matters. Quiet moments in the car with their fingers laced together – the shared looks over Sherlock's antics – the soft kisses that say "hello" and "goodbye" and more, all without words – the quiet cups of tea, drunk together, that begin and end the day.

"Morning," Greg says, squeezing Mycroft's shoulder as he reaches across the table for the teapot. He likes Mycroft like this, sweaty from his morning workout, still disheveled and private, the man that few others get to see.

"Good morning." Mycroft folds over the sections of the paper that he's finished with and passes them over to Greg.

Tea and toast this morning, Greg decides, popping in an extra slice for Mycroft.

"I don't want–"

Greg's already rummaging through the fridge for their favourite marmalade, and pretends not to hear him.

"Hmmph," Mycroft says, but his fingers brush against Greg's when he accepts the plate with the slice of toast. He pretends to be reading the paper, but watches Greg while he nibbles on the toast.

Greg washes down the last of his toast with a hearty swig of tea and then clears his throat. "Dirty weekend away? If there's no war to avert in some far flung Commonwealth territory that I've never heard of?"

He used to make up improbable names for countries, but it annoyed Mycroft enough that Greg's given it up, as amusing as it was to see the faces he made.

Mycroft smiles. "I think I can make time for that."


End file.
